29 September 2007

Comment approval

I'm sorry to report that due to continual posting of unwanted comments by one individual, despite my direct request to him to stop, I've decided to turn on the option to approve all comments before they are posted. I'm really sorry to impose this inconvenience to everyone else, but there's no other option available that seems reasonable to me. More than for any other reason, I hate doing it because it feel like I am handing some kind of victory to a sick person who doesn't know how to be kind or even considerate.

You can see what kind of person this so-called Christian is by reading the comment he left me here after I politely asked him to stop doing so.

6 comments:

Stan R
said...

Wow. Just ... wow. I'd like to be able to blame that sort of thing on one too many run-ins with one of the "bleeding deacons" in the Fellowship, but....

What you have witnessed is the result of treating text as sacred. It doesn't matter whether the text is a big blue book written in 1939 or one assembled from various sources in 325 -- one needs to be able to read the message rather than just the words. And one needs to be able to recognise that we have the collected experience of millions in addition to the Big Book and 12&12 -- there's no reason for any of us to lead the joyless life of some of the more fundamentalist Big Book thumpers I've run into over the past twenty-odd years. (Or, apparently, of "Mickey".)

Comment moderation may be a necessary evil on sites like this one anyway. I mean, the whole point of the deal is to share our experience (and I take that to mean the rough spots as well as the easy times), strength and hope with each other. Hope is paramount here, since there is absolutely no way in the world anyone is going to embark on our admittedly inconvenient journey if there is no glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Negativity is self-fulfilling -- and deadly.

I'd love to be able to sign this with my Blogger name, but I'm dancing around the edges of the Eleventh Tradition as it is, and my blog is primarily technical/professional, so I'll just leave it at:

My dear Shadow, I completely disagree with the idea of flagging his blog. In my humble opinion, to do so would be antithetical to one of the most important axioms of the Internet (notwithstanding what the government of Myanmar is attempting these days): that anyone can say anything. I don't want him posting on my blog but let him say whatever he wants on his blog.

Even aside from that, so far as I know he's said nothing that should result his blog being de-listed or his readers being warned. Let those readers make up their own mind, just like you and I did.

If he libels someone, let them take him to court, if they so desire. Let's not create our own separate police force or, worse yet, become vigilantes extracting our revenge.

I had someone anonymous leaving weird comments (hinting that my bf was a psycho, that I have a phobia of people because I don't like to dance, etc.) so I finally got rid of the "anonymous" option. Sad to do it, felt like maybe I was trying to be egotistical or protective of myself (not having anyone say anything bad about me) but then I realized that I blog for FUN...and people should respect that. (Plus, you know how I feel about anonymous folks that don't link their own blog. :-P)

I can't believe that guy didn't stop commenting even after you asked him not to. Blah. Good riddance.

Stan, I would agree that the kind of fundamentalism with regard to texts that you mention contributes to this phenomenon. But I suspect that a more basic cause is an inability to love. If your child—whom you presumably can't help but love—asks for bread, do you give him or her a stone? The question doesn't even need answering. Truth, no matter how true, has to be tempered with love or, one could even say, it ceases to be true.

In the rooms of A.A. we value the sometimes hard truths that come from those who love us, because they've already established by their words and deeds that they do indeed love us and have our best interests at heart. Divorce the truth from that love and they become the kind of people that always agree with everything we say and do, or the kind that care only what [they think] we think of them. Divorce the love from that truth and they become cruel and hurtful people, from whom it's almost impossible to hear the truth.

Frankly, in the case we're talking about, it seems to me there is neither love nor truth. He twists the facts, takes statements from the Big Book (or even quotes our own words) out of context and falsifies the truths of Holy Scripture by setting them in opposition to the intent of its Author.

His inability to love may, I suppose, be due to the fact that he doesn't want to love or that he's unwilling to take the actions that lead to being loving. More likely, in my experience, he has been deeply wounded and is simply spiritually sick.

"This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."_________________________________

BTW, now I'm extremely curious to know which is your blog. I have my suspicions, but that's all they are: suspicions. At the very least, I hope I'm already reading it.

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Contact me—via either e-mail or Gmail chat—at namenlosen dot trinker at gmail dot com (replace ' dot ' with '.' and ' at ' with '@'). What I show as my birthday on my profile is actually my sobriety date.

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